Merry Kissmas
by Zoey Overbeck
Summary: Short prompts requested by the JerlitaShippersUnite group on DeviantART, in which Aelita is devious, Jeremie is clueless, and nobody is kissless. ...kind of. ...for some chapters anyway.
1. Protection

JW2P1: Protection

He'd do anything for her- spend an enormous amount of time working on a program to keep her out of XANA's clutches, help her find the whereabouts of her father when she did not know anything of her origins, and protect her from most of the hardships of living in the real world. However, he knew that he could be a little overprotective sometimes and not see that she wanted to slowly explore the world around her, but that came instinctively from fighting off XANA's attacks that always seemed to be directed towards her.

"Hey, Einstein, it's almost breakfast!" Odd's voice called him out of his reverie, and Jeremie paused in typing commands for his latest project. "We have to hurry; otherwise all the pancakes will be gone!"

Jeremie pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose and turned around just in time to see Odd leave and his door close. Jeremie gave a small sigh, saved the program he was writing, and exited the window. Yawning from the exhaustion of working through the whole night and stretching his body, he stood up and left his room, preparing himself for the start of what he presumed to be another boring day.

Unfortunately for him, XANA had other plans. In the Forest sector, the neutral white hue of the tower turned blood red as XANA took control of it.

As Jeremie headed to the cafeteria to get his breakfast after brushing and changing out of his nightclothes, he heard his fellow schoolmates shout in horror. Their electrical devices emitted the black forms of specters, which then engulfed them. Their bodies shook as XANA infiltrated their bodies, and when they looked up at Jeremie, their eyes were filled with hate as the eye-of-XANA pulsed rapidly.

"Ah!" Jeremie yelled as they raised their hands and shot bolts of electrical energy at him.

Breathing heavily, Jeremie ran into the forest as he tried to shake them off of his trail. As he ran, however, he heard Aelita's high pitched scream echo through the forest, a flock of birds taking flight to the air at the sudden disturbance.

"Aelita!" he yelled, changing his course towards the direction where her scream came from.  
"There he is." The possessed Xavier growled, sending another electrical blast at Jeremie.

Jeremie looked behind him to see the group of possessed students still following after him, using their super-human speed to keep him within their sight.

"Aelita!" he yelled, spotting the unconscious girl being dragged towards the sewer entrance by a XANAfied Jim.

Jim growled and picked Aelita up, increasing his speed to a run, figuring that Jeremie was too fatigued to catch up to him. However, XANA failed to take into account Jeremie's determination. Forcing himself to go even faster, Jeremie snatched his princess out of Jim's arms and took off, dodging Jim's attacks as he ran away with Aelita in his arms. Constantly trying to look behind him through the heavily treed area, he did not notice the ravine that he was rapidly approaching until he fell into it. Tumbling down the sloped earth, Jeremie instinctively clutched his burden and protected her from getting scratched by the thorns on the vines and the tree roots sticking out of the dirt, landing on a pile of dead leaves. However, he bit his lip and stifled his cries of pain for fear of having XANA discover their location.

Jeremie's breath hitched as he heard Jim stop short of the ravine, who was growling as he failed to locate the pair through the masses of wild vegetation. Giving the area one last look, Jim turned around and headed back to converge with the other possessed victims of XANA's attack. Hearing the last of Jim's footsteps leave the area, Jeremie looked down when he heard Aelita softly moan as she came to. Her soft green eyes fluttering with bewilderment, she gave a happy cry when she saw Jeremie, gasping when she saw Jeremie's numerous cuts owing to the tumble.

"Hey there, Princess." Jeremie smiled. "Don't worry about those." He said, when he noticed what she was looking at. "That's nothing. I am more worried about you."  
"Jeremie, what's happening?"  
"XANA activated a tower. We have to go and deactivate it as soon as possible."

Aelita nodded and pulled out her cellphone to alert her friends, thankful of her guardian angel who was always watching and protecting her- Jeremie Belpois.


	2. Snow

**JW2P2: Snow**

Kadic Academy was far from its usual self today as snow drifted down from the grey-clouded heavens. Students and faculty alike were strewn outside of the school, waging snowball fights and building snowmen. Aelita tilted her head back and opened her mouth, a sense of wonder and awe twinkling in her bright green eyes. She stuck her tongue out, hoping to catch one of the tiny snowflakes in her mouth, but was disappointed when she did not feel or taste anything on her tongue.

Removing her mittens, the sharp contrast of temperature stung her hands as they were exposed to the freezing wind. She extended her hand, and watched closely as snowflakes landed on her palm, earning a squeak of excitement from the girl. However, confusion quickly replaced the look of ebullience from Aelita as she watched the snowflakes quickly melt into droplets of water in her hand.

"Snow…" she breathed, her eyes still alight with the wonder and curiosity of Earth.

What seemed to be a simple and almost boring concept for most people, save for young children, Aelita was truly fascinated with what people called "snow". What others have took for granted on the sensation of feeling and seeing objects, Aelita eagerly jumped at any chance to experience something new and exciting. Having been on Lyoko for slightly eleven years of her life, Aelita never had a chance to explore snow, not even when XANA had sent a fierce blizzard upon the city.

Crouching down and scooping up a handful of snow on her bare hand, Aelita gently squeezed it, surprise when the small pile of snow transformed into a somewhat solid lump of ice.

"Fascinating" she murmured, still watching the snow carefully as if it would suddenly perform another feat. "Don't you find snow to be fascinating, Jeremie?" She asked, hearing footsteps lightly crunching behind her in the snow.  
'Drat!' Jeremie thought, stopping a foot behind her. "How did you know I was coming up behind you?"  
"It's easy- you always smell of French Vanilla." She gave a small sigh, and dumped the handful of snow onto the ground. "It mixes so wonderfully in the snow…"

Aelita slowly got up and stared into Jeremie's eyes, smiling a little when she saw that he grinned, hiding something behind his back. Noticing the flicker of hesitation in his eyes, she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips, startling him and causing him to drop the snowball he was hiding onto the ground.

"I knew it." Aelita gave an all-knowing smirk and watched Jeremie recover from his post-kiss catatonia.


	3. Ice Skating

**JW2P3: Ice Skating**

"It's easy, Aelita. You just have to find your balance, that's all." Jeremie soothed while helping Aelita onto the icy surface of the frozen pond. Ever since freeing her from the supercomputer a few months ago, Jeremie tried as hard as he could to let her experience Earth as much as possible, in between the time he usually spent trying to find the anti-virus for her.

The sun was now setting, making the sky look as if it were on fire with color combinations of red, oranges and yellow. Aelita's eyes widened and her hold on Jeremie increased, trying to balance her skates on the ice. Jeremie gently smiled, having learned to ice skate by his parents' urgings that he must find a hobby that he liked and didn't involve computers or programming. Jeremie slid onto the ice; Aelita holding onto one of his hands as he slowly skated, leading her to an emptier part of the frozen pond for her to practice. Jeremie held both of her hands in his as he taught her how to balance herself on the frozen surface- a slightly difficult task given her unfamiliarity with ice skating and having not been in the real world for a long time.

Finished making sure the straps were securely fastened down for his ice skates, Jeremie gracefully slid across the ice, motioning for Aelita to do so. With a bit of hesitation, Aelita stumbled on her skates momentarily before slowly being able to skate an extremely small distance towards Jeremie. Her confidence growing, Aelita pushed herself towards Jeremie little by little, slowly exerting more force with each push.

"Jeremie, I'm doing it, I'm doing- oof!" Aelita had accidentally given herself too much of a push-off and had plowed into Jeremie, earning an appreciative laugh from him.  
"Keep trying Aelita." Jeremie chuckled, gently holding her hands again and teaching her how to stop.

An hour of training later, and Aelita was happily skating alongside Jeremie, freely interweaving between students and faculty alike. It had taken many tries before she was able to skate without toppling over or become nervous at her weight being solely focused on two thin pieces of metal on the bottom of the skates.

"You know, Jeremie, I often had wondered how those figure skaters I see on television a lot now had managed to skate and hardly make any mistakes, especially when they were performing those tricks in front of the audience and the judges."  
"It takes a lot of practice Aelita. I'm not surprised if they had a few years of training under their belts, so to speak."  
"Hey, Jeremie, I bet you can't catch me!" Aelita gave a short laugh before pushing herself in the direction towards the student body.

"Aelita!" Jeremie nearly shouted before taking off after her in a wild goose chase.

Aelita leisurely skated in between students, camouflaged by the sheer number of students who had decided to use the frozen pond for recreation after being trapped inside due to the cold winter. Jeremie waded through the mob of students, able to instantly recognize the pink sweatshirt anywhere. Aelita turned around and caught sight of him just as he was a few meters away and took off again, coyly skating fast enough so he couldn't catch her, but was careful to slow herself down once in a while so he could keep track of where she was. Jeremie pushed himself harder, ducking under a student's arm and inching closer towards Aelita, who didn't seem to be aware of his presence at the time.

Suddenly, Aelita sharply turned, making Jeremie instantly lose sight of where she was. Digging his skates into the ice and slowly skidding to a halt, Jeremie worriedly looked around him, unsure of where she could have run, or in this case, skated off to. Nervously biting one gloved hand, he was unaware of a familiar face coming closer until she whispered in his ear.

"Catch me if you can."

Jeremie whirled around only to see a blur of pink skating nearby, waiting until he gave chase to skate away again. Jeremie gave a sly grin and darted towards her, who squealed in surprise and skated away with Jeremie following in what resembled the dance of fireflies in the night.


	4. Mistletoe

**JW2P4: Mistletoe**

In the poor lighting of the auditorium, two figures were close together, muttering to themselves and one of them handing something to the other. Shadows flickered across them, and they stared at each other, grinning broadly. Emerald and sapphire eyes alike twinkled with a sort of hidden secret that only they knew.

"Okay, I think all the mistletoe is up." Jeremie whispered, winking as he and Aelita went ahead with their devious plan.

Aelita nodded and carefully hid the box within a pile of similar boxes that were going to be recycled. For her part, she had been the distraction every time she saw Ulrich and Yumi, using idle chatter to keep both of then suspecting anything while Jeremie set up mistletoe in key points- places where he thought the two would most likely be hanging around. Jeremie gave a small smile and started to descend the ladder, momentarily staring at their secret weapon. Panicking when they heard Ulrich and Yumi coming closer to their position, they froze in place, trying to think of what to do in the short moments they had left until both of the lovebirds came into the room.

"Run!" Aelita urged, picking up the ladder and running with it under her arms once Jeremie was firmly on the ground.

Jeremie nodded, and without another word, they fled from the "crime scene", hiding just in time to hear both of them enter the part of the room they had been in mere moments ago.

"I'm thankful that you let me borrow your scarf, Ulrich. It's freezing in here!" Yumi bit her lip and repressed a shiver.  
"Hey, don't sweat it." Ulrich replied causally, handing Yumi a cough drop. "I mean, after you caught that nasty flu and all…"

Yumi gave an appreciative smile and continued walking with him in the almost empty auditorium. Ulrich grinned back at her, glad that she was slowly getting better. Aelita lightly set the ladder down on the floor as quietly as she possibly could, but was disappointed when the sound of metal hitting wood echoed eerily around the room. Ulrich immediately flinched, looking around for the source of the noise but finding nothing that could have possibly made it.

"Oh, no…" Ulrich muttered, staring at the ceiling.

Hanging above them was a small spring of mistletoe, almost invisible due to the lack of lighting. Yumi followed his gaze and blushed heavily upon sight of the small plant.

"Whenever I find Odd, I'm going to kill him…" Ulrich muttered darkly. "I bet he has Milly and Tamiya somewhere here, ready to post the picture of us on the latest edition of the school paper.  
"Well then, let's make this quick…" Yumi whispered, grinning from ear to ear.  
"Wait, huh-?" Ulrich was cut off as Yumi kissed him, then quickly escorting the madly blushing Ulrich out of the room.

Behind the curtains of the stage, Aelita and Jeremie poked their heads out, looking around to make sure both Ulrich and Yumi were gone before they fully revealed themselves.

"That was a close call, huh Aelita." Jeremie sighed, wiping the sweat from his brow. "Aelita?" he asked when he didn't hear a response from her.

Turning around, he was about to ask if she was alright, but was greeted by the sight of Aelita holding a sprig of mistletoe above them, grinning slyly. Before he could register was about to happen, Aelita kissed him several times, leaving him with three pink lip prints on his face.

"I… uh… well… erm…" Jeremie stuttered, unused to not being able to form coherent sentences to describe how deeply he cared for her.  
"Merry Christmas…" she lightly breathed in his ear, and took off, turning around to motion him to follow her.

Grinning boldly, Aelita hid the mistletoe in her pocket. She was sure she was going to need it again during this holiday season.


End file.
